Digital Social Hour - Kyle Kirshner On Making Millions on Amazon, Finding Products & Almost Getting Arrested | DSH #230

Episode Date: January 13, 2024

On today's episode of Digital Social Hour, Kyle Kirshner reveals how he almost got arrested, how he's made millions with Amazon and how he finds winning products. APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://forms.gle/qXvENTeurx7Xn8Ci9 BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail] SPONSORS: Opus Pro: https://www.opus.pro/?via=DSH Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly Digital Social Hour works with participants in sponsored media and stays compliant with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations regarding sponsored media. #ad LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Get 15% off a set of Brake Mess Select, Select Pro, or Import Direct Brake Pads and 2 Rotors now at O'Reilly Auto Parts. O, O, O, O'Reilly Auto Parts. If the manufacturer says they do not do customizations, I usually say that's the first red flag. Don't go do business with them. You never want to deal with those manufacturers directly because you're never going to get one the best price possible because they're going to upsell you and then two you're not going to be able to customize your product the way that i usually tell people is like a like a necessity these days welcome back to the show guys i'm your host as always sean kelly we are here on the digital social hour today i got with me amazon expert kyle Kirshner. How's it going, man?

It's going great. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Man, you were just talking numbers with me, and I couldn't believe some of the numbers you were saying. Yeah, it's pretty wild. I've been in this Amazon kind of crazy space for 13 years. Yes, you've seen a lot. Sure have, yeah. I mean, 13 years ago, you know, when I started 2010, that's when, you've seen a lot. Sure have, yeah. I mean, 13 years ago, when I started in 2010, that's when you've got to scrape all the data from your Amazon customers. Now it's a lot more competitive and it's a lot harder

because Amazon hides all their customers' data. I used to get names, addresses, phone numbers, emails. Now we don't get even a first name from our customers. Are you serious? Yeah. So what do you get when an order comes in? Basically just an order number. We get an order.

No address? We get an order number. They take care of the address if it's FBA fulfilled by Amazon, unless we do FBM, which basically we're fulfilling from our warehouse or whatnot. Then we'll get an address, but yeah, they're very strict with their customers' data these days. Wow.

Yeah. Do you feel like that kind of hurts your chances of selling the company? Not necessarily selling the company because, you know, once you have a successful Amazon business, a lot of people want it. You know, it's pretty hands-off with the distribution, with Amazon handling the customer service, the shipping, the storage of your products, all that stuff. And that's what I think people love.

But it is hard trying to get a leg up from everybody else since they do hide everybody's customer data. Because back in the day, we used to, a lot of people, they used to actually go out and send people gift cards to hopefully get a positive review and things like that. But now that's one of the main reasons why they do hide everybody's customer data. I remember that. I used to get those. Yeah. Yeah. So there's this thing called insert cards. And I actually still have one in each one of my products.

But we have to word it differently now because, you know, just, you know, the regular regulations and things like that. Yeah. But yeah, back in the day, people would be sending out, you know, $15 Amazon gift cards to try to get a five star review to try to get a leg up from, you know, their competitors. Yeah. Yeah. Now we don't have the luxury of that anymore. Dang. Someone must have ruined that. Oh yeah. Big time. You could actually get your whole account shut down. Your business gone.

Jeez. Just from asking for a review? Correct. Yeah. Wow. People are probably manipulating the system. They are. They definitely are. And there's trigger words. So Amazon's, a lot of Amazon right now is AI. So, you know, you can leave somebody a positive review. And let's say there's a trigger word that is in their positive review. So like, let's say somebody said, oh, this product's smoking, like as some good. But the AI might take a negative, like, oh, the product was physically smoking. Right.

So this company I worked for um they did 20 million a year on amazon in electronic space but they actually got their company shut down for about a week because somebody said something about one of their trigger words in the review saying oh this product was smoking and amazon took it as it was actually catching on fire so they shut down their whole business for a week they lost from a review yeah and they lost like 500k to a million dollars oh my gosh yeah so um it's so it's kind of like the wild wild west these days on amazon but that's still a great business model yeah so you've been doing it for 12 years right yeah about 13 uh but 13 years ago i

wasn't selling i was actually learning i actually fell into it when i was in high school by just getting one of my first jobs at a local warehouse just for some beer money. And little did I know at the time, I was just one of the warehouse workers, little did I know at the time this company I was working for, just small family, they're doing 20 million a year on Amazon with their electronics brand. And I was just so intrigued. I mean, I didn't even really know much about Amazon. I didn't even know that 60% of the products you buy on Amazon come from a small business owner and not Amazon themselves. So that actually shocked me.

It was just something very new to me. So I worked for that company for minimum wage for five years, and I basically learned the ins and outs of how they started, scaled, launched their successful business. And after five years, I started my own. I asked them for permission because I had to sign ndas yeah um beforehand and uh they're like yeah man as long as you're not selling in our space go for it all right so uh after that never looked back and uh yeah i've been selling successfully for eight years nice so walk me through the revenue

and the growth those eight years were you profitable from the first year? No, not at all. I had to find a small investor because sales were going. I learned the ranking strategies from that company, which is absolutely huge because if you're going to launch your own product on Amazon, let's say you're going to launch your own Bluetooth speaker. Amazon's going to put you on page 20 for Bluetooth speaker. And as a consumer, there's about 68 people on the first page. And as a consumer, if you're typing in Bluetooth speaker, you're only going to buy from one of those 68 people on the first page. It's a very small percentage.

I think like 5% even go to page number two. Damn. Yeah. And that's what I was blessed to learn from that company is how they're ranking all their products to the first page. And it takes us a decent amount of capital to kind of get your product there. So I had the knowledge, but I didn't have the capital.

So I needed an investor, found an investor, got him. He was just a silent partner. But about year three is when I started getting profitable. Nice. And yeah, now we have a supplement brand. We have 60% margins in our backpacker brand we have 30 margins um all seven figures and uh so yeah it's been great you said the supplement one did 20 million in sales yeah so that one's our eight figure brand um that's our i love that company

because uh the margins are fantastic yeah um our manufacturers in New York. We get our pill bottles for about $2, and we sell them on Amazon for $40. Damn. That's the highest margin I've ever heard, I think. So that's why I absolutely love the supplement space. And if you take my program, because I coach people how to create their own Amazon brands, if you take my program, I'd say to stay away from two categories, electronics and supplements. And I know I'm in the supplement space however it just there's a lot of competition out there it took me about a million dollars to even get my

products in that business placed to where it needs to be whoa yeah so the backpack cooler company is what i started with that's where i got my success from and then i always want to start supplement brand i knew it was just you know a lot of uh hungry capital so after i got my first business successful that's when i knew okay i actually have some money to play around with to start something else and uh that's when i started the supplement brand all right what are some uh industries markets you see potential in coming up 2024 um so yeah supplements are still huge um i do i hate electronics i do but they're very it's still a successful niche. The only reason why I don't mess with it is because the company that I work for

that was doing eight figures selling their own electronics, they only had 3% margins. And their margins were 3% because of all of their returns. And not only manufactured defects from getting electronics from China or whatever, but also user error. So I would see a bunch of negative reviews from just people not simply knowing how to use the product. So I like to sell products that are kind of just dumb friendly,

just like that don't need a manual, that don't need any kind of, that's why my backpack coolers, there are about 50 different backpack coolers, but they don't need any kind of you know that's why like like my backpack colors are about 50 different backpack colors but they don't come with a user manual how to use them and you know so on and so forth yeah and those are the type of products that i love that you know don't need to be explained because if you're not there to explain it it could kind of bite you in the right wow and what about like just finding products in general is that hard um so i wouldn't necessarily say it's hard.

You definitely need software. I have a couple different softwares I use. One of them is my own that I white-labeled called Private Label Sellers. That's big because you need to know what product is doing what monthly revenue. The reason why I say that is because I don't actually look for products

that are doing $5 million a month, $2 million dollars a month I actually teach and I look for products that are doing in between a certain revenue sweet spot I like to call it where they're doing at least ten thousand dollars a month but they're not exceeding two hundred thousand dollars a month and the reason for that is because of just the competition I mean you know the people that are selling products doing a million dollars a month five million dollars a month you're going to need to invest more to get your product to that first page because they're doing those numbers now if you find a product that is doing in between that revenue sweet spot I told you you can spend maybe three grand or two grand to get to the first page and see 15 to 20 grand in results monthly right so the people that are in my program that maybe

have 10 to 15 grand to play around with that the people that are in my program that maybe have 10 to 15 grand to play around with that's usually the criteria give them look for products that are doing this monthly revenue and you know make sure no big brands are dominating the space and you know make sure that everybody on the first page is at least six people with under 150 reviews and kind of a whole step-by-step criteria that i'd check off of when looking for a new product nice so say you find a product that meets that criteria. How do you go about ordering them from there? Yeah, so the two biggest ones, most people have heard of Alibaba.

The other ones that people are not that aware of is called Global Sources. I really like Global Sources. It's just another platform that you're not necessarily going to find the same manufacturers that you are seeing on Alibaba, which is ultimately a good thing. Because, I mean, when I first created my backpack cooler company, I wasn't the first one to create a backpack cooler company. But what I was doing was I tell everybody to really read upon the reviews

of the companies that are out there so what i did is i was scrolling through all the yeti reviews for like for for a while and um a lot of people were complaining about they wanted a backpack cooler that was half backpack half cooler but not a backpack cooler that was just all backpack cooler so i actually designed one um found a manufacturer on alibaba i said hey do you guys do customizations they said yes i got with their design team and then i designed one where the bottom portion was only the cooler and the top portion was specific specifically a backpack wow so that the top portion you could have your dry stuff that doesn't get wet the bottom portion was you know separated and you can put your cooler stuff in and so it's also all about the you know, separated and you can put your cooler stuff in. And so it's also all about the, you know,

your main picture on your listing once you get to that first page. And so I had on my main picture, basically it showing that, you know, the bottom portion is a cooler and then an arrow to the top portion being, you know, your safe dry spot. And so once I had learned how to get that product to the first page, it blew up. I was doing 500k a month with that one product so definitely those two platforms are the ones i would go for but you definitely want to dig into your competitors research and see what people are having issues with their product because you can go and cultivate something and you can tell a manufacturer in alibaba or global sources i want this this and this fixed on my product because i can see my competitors are having those issues. That's smart.

And that's something that I actually stress like, you know, huge. And now you can actually put that stuff in ChatGPT. You can literally, you know, download the 3,000 reviews that this one seller has. You can ask ChatGPT, what's the five main problems that people are having? Yeah. So I see a lot of people using, you know, AI

with, you know, new products launches and things like that. That's actually so smart. Wait, so how do you export all those reviews? Yeah, so I see a lot of people using you know AI with you know new products launches and things like that So smart wait, so how do you export all those reviews? Yeah, so it's it's incredible You know, I'm not a big jet chat GBT guy, but I know the power of it And so yeah my buddy tells me he just he gives chat GBT the lists thing or the ASIN on chat GBT and then he says comb through the 3000 reviews and tell me the five most you know typical problems that are wrong with this product and then i'll spit them out and to me that's like

that's like wow i mean i could fire someone in my company just that's from you know figuring out how to make my product better than my competitors yeah no that's such a cool model because you know companies like yeti are doing over 100 mil a year and you could identify some problems and then create your own product. Absolutely. And I usually tell people too, if the manufacturer says they do not do customizations, I usually say that's the first red flag.

Don't go do business with them. Because the problem with Alibaba and those things, a lot of those are what I call resellers. And they're not the actual person sewing the products together, actually know, sewing the products together, actually manufacturing and building the products. What they are is they're a warehouse that are just reselling products from other manufacturers. And you never want to deal with those manufacturers directly

because you're never going to get, one, the best price possible because they're going to upsell you. And then, two, you're not going to be able to customize your product the way that I usually tell people is like a necessity these days. You ever have any quality control issues? I know Amazon sellers sometimes struggle with that. Yeah. So one of the main big things are usually ASINs, barcodes. I mean, I don't know how many times I've had products come to my warehouse that have just been the wrong barcode the wrong asin and i've had nightmare stories because if you do send your inventory in with the wrong barcode you'll lose your entire

inventory and amazon says they are not liable for any of it and i actually have a friend that lost million dollars worth of inventory and he didn't get anything back serious yeah so i usually tell people yes amazon fulfillment centers will store our product yes you know all that stuff but if you can house it for 24 to 48 hours even even you know back the day before i had a warehouse i was doing in my garage yeah if you can house it for 24 to 48 hours to make sure that everything is correct you know i usually test five to ten percent of the units take them out you know um i actually use the products make sure they're good check the markings check the barcodes.

But after that, yeah, that scare from my friend, I always get everything sent to me first, make sure a warehouse worker or whatever doubles checks it, and then sends it off to Amazon's film center. Wow, so you eat into your margin a little bit just to be safe. Correct, yeah, because, yeah, I don't want to lose the whole inventory. A million dollars, so they just kept it? Yeah, and the thing that's the worst is dealing with Amazon support,

you're always dealing with somebody from just a rural country. They don't give a ****. Yeah, exactly. So they'll just give you the runaround all day long. So that's basically how they lost inventories. They're just getting the runaround all day long. Nobody's there to help them. So you definitely got to do your own quality control.

Yeah. So as an Amazon seller, do you see any other sellers eating into their share etsy ebay walmart any of those guys coming in yeah so i actually love a couple of those platforms big fan of etsy i have a client doing 100 grand a month on etsy selling pompous grass what's that uh basically the the fake grass that you put in your living room for like decor no not the not the green grass it's like stuff that you put in your living room for decor. No, not the green grass. It's stuff that you put in just something like that. It's just

kind of like a home decor product. She's doing $100,000 a month selling this grass. The thing that I love about Etsy and those platforms is we can actually still have Amazon store and house our inventory. And if we get an order through Etsy or Walmart, we can have them take one from our Amazon stock and have one of the Amazon warehouse workers ship our Etsy order.

So that's big. So if I put my product on Etsy, Groupon, Walmart, I'm having my home of Amazon's fulfillment centers ship out all of my other orders. Yeah. So that's, you know, if you don't want to just be, you know, one trick pony on one platform, you can have your inventory and Amazon being held and still have these other platforms getting sales and Amazon still doing the fulfillment. Oh, wow.

So they can ship to if you get a sale on eBay. Correct. They'll ship it from Amazon. Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah. So that's what I do a lot for my Etsy orders and things like that. You have to manually do it. So, you know, it's called creating a fulfillment order through Amazon. But, you know,

I have just somebody day to day checks my other platform orders and then they'll go on Amazon, they'll create a fulfillment order and they'll ship them out to the Etsy customer. What's the most you've seen someone make selling on Amazon um well i have a friend that does about 100 million a year jesus yeah he's uh he's in the supplement space as well great margins not sure what those margins are um for him but if i have 60 percent in my you know eight figure brand i'm sure he does as well or even better um so i'd have to say that one but the reason why i tell people stay away from electronics and stuff is yeah margin focused um it was a great brand it's a very fulfilling

you know business and i learned a lot from them but even the the ceo told me god you're going to get into this stay away from electronics because you know just the amount of time and money it takes from every return because every return they get they have somebody in the warehouse testing every return because they're trying to put them on use for ebay or another platform just to soak up as much profit as they can oh yeah so yeah i would stay away from that but yeah 100 million is probably the most uh a year now when someone returns a product do you get charged a fee or something so we don't get charged a fee. However, you can return anything you want on Amazon. Amazon will give you your money back 100%.

And that's why actually it's big that you do go through your returns because you have to say your product is defective in order to go through that return. However, 50% to 60% of the times, the product is 100% working order. Oh, they're just lying. Yeah, so they just obviously want their money back. They didn't want the product. They got it for a it for gifts whatever the reason is i have also a warehouse

worker that goes and checks all my returns because most of the time every other one is you know not even out of the packaging so again i'm trying to squeeze my margins as well so i'll either put them back into another um stock that i'm shipping out to amazon or i'll put them on uh ebay walmart or one of those other platforms wow that's crazy that that number is so high either put them back into another stock that I'm shipping out to Amazon or I'll put them on eBay, Walmart or one of those other platforms. Wow. That's crazy that that number is so high. It makes sense. Yeah, it's extremely high, but that's why Amazon kind of is always catering towards the customer. Yeah. And because, yeah, no matter what product it is, even if it's a working condition, they'll take the refund. Absolutely. Have you ever had to deal with

any payment holds? Yeah. So definitely when you're a first seller that's uh it's going to be kind of your biggest bottleneck um because they're going to keep a couple months worth of your sales in their store just to make sure chargebacks things like that yeah so yeah you never get your full payout in the beginning um but usually after that it's pretty smooth sailing. What do they pay out is it like a weekly thing? Every two weeks. Every two weeks? Yeah so every two weeks kind of like yeah most normal jobs or whatnot. How are you investing all this money you're making just back in the business? Actually not not really I'm actually I've been putting a bunch of offers out right now

and just other kind of absentee've been putting a bunch of offers out right now and just other kind of absentee owner businesses. So a couple of laundromats, a couple of car washes. Old school stuff. Yeah. I'm kind of, you know, I'm a big advocate for putting your online money into physical assets. Right. So that's basically kind of the transition I'm going through right now. I'm starting to automate my businesses and I'm kind of trying to go towards more of the investing side Yeah, because now you're on the safer side. You made your millions. I just chillin now. You're happy with 10% a year. Absolutely

Yeah, what'd you do before Amazon? Were you doing business? Well before Amazon I was actually working for that company that it was doing 20 million a year selling their own Electronics brands and so They were the biggest competitors with Mophie. They were the battering charging cases in the back of your iPhone. Anchor. Big Bluetooth speaker company.

I have one of those. I was working for one of their big competitors for five years. Just trying to get my normal beer money throughout the weekend. You were in college during that i was in high school oh in high school yeah i was 15 years old and i worked for that company from 15 to 20 and then uh yeah now i'm 28 and so i've been selling for the eight years but i was learning for the other five so

that's why i've been in for 13 wow wait so what age were you drinking at i was drinking i'm trying to do the math right dude i was i was 11 what yeah i was started drinking at 12 I'm trying to do the math right now. Dude, I was... I was supposed to be 11. What? Yeah, I started drinking at 12. I was an early bloomer, you could say, because, I mean, when I was like 16, all my friends were in their 20s. So, yeah.

So you were trying to fit in with them. Yeah, I guess. Did you make it through high school? I did, yeah. Passed high school, did a little bit of college. But during that college thing, I actually wanted to go for art because I was a painter. Oh, yeah? Yeah, that's how I got into tattoos and stuff.

I was getting tattooed at 14. Damn. So you needed your parents' signature for those. Well, I did not know because my friends were all getting stuff in their garages and whatnot. But yeah, so I was an early bloomer with that stuff. And then surprisingly, that's why I say that business kind of saved me because I was going down a pretty crazy path, gotten arrested a lot of times. And then I just, this whole Amazon thing,

working for this company, I was just, I was wired in. Dang, what'd you get arrested for? Oh, I've been arrested for a few times. But one of my favorite, favorite stories was, I was about 16 years old. It was my first time ever going to Lake Havasu. At the time, like I said, my friends were in their 20s, but not 21 yet, so just 20. My buddy, his dad said, yeah, you can take our new boat out on Havasu.

Just, you know, be smart. So my first time in Havasu, my friend's 20. He's another buddy who's 20 and we're these other two girls are 20 as well we're all just drinking on the boat and then before you know it uh you know see a sheriff you know pulling us over because i guess he was like doing wake and like the no wake zone or whatever um the sheriff you know checks everybody's ids i had a fake id while i was you know at that age or whatever know, checks everybody's IDs. I had a fake ID while I was, you know, at that age or whatever. Sheriff's checking everybody's IDs. He's like, oh, tell my friends. You're 20.

You're operating this boat. You're drinking. You know, that's not allowed. I'm going to take over this boat, and I'm going to take you guys to the drunk tank. Damn. So the sheriff's hop on the boat. My buddy's freaking out. He's like, you know, it's my dad's new boat.

Yeah. I'm about to get a BUI. I didn't even know that was a thing. It is. Because he got one. Yeah, he's about to get a BUI, boating't even know that was a thing it is because he got one uh yeah he's about to get a bui boating under the influence he's 20 years old um so we're all they'll dock us at and in lake hapistude there's a place to jail people like on the water really yeah so they dock us on the dock to where we're they're about to walk us to basically the cell where you wait and

you know you drunk tank or whatnot so we're all the sheriffs are walking us to basically the cell where you wait and you know your drunk tank or whatnot so we're all the sheriffs are walking us to the drunk tank and i actually there's you know the water still next to me i throw out my real id in the water i was like i'm just gonna act like i am this person in my fake id yeah i throw the other one out it floats i'm in the drunk tank and then little like an hour goes by they call me out and like why are you in here i was like you guys threw me in here they're like yeah but your id says you're 24 i was like yeah but you guys put me in here so that's why i'm in here so he's like all right well are you okay to drive i was like yeah i was not and um he's like okay we i'll let you go with your friend's

boat so i've never been to habsu before never driven a boat before and my friend and these two girls are watching me they're crying they're bawling their eyes out because they're like on the phone with their parents like well you gotta come get me and you know and they gave me the keys to my friend's dad's boat and i'm again never driven a boat nothing take the boat i'm driving around for hours just like okay how do i park this thing just kind of park on it like what do i do so i see a beach pull up to the beach and i'm just chilling in the boat and i see trash can nearby and i tie it to the trash can it's a little trash can i tie this like a couple hundred thousand dollar bugs

this trash can and i'm just in there drinking waiting for my buddies to get you're still drinking yeah just waiting for my buddies to get launched out of the drunk tank and uh their parents all pick them up i'm on my phone i'm on the phone my mom saying i gotta jump my bank id i'm okay there's a crazy story i'll tell you when i get home i'm super cool whatever but they all come their parents bail them out of the drunk tank i'm sitting there drinking drunk with a boat tied to a trash can how heavy was the trash can i'm trying to picture this it wasn't that heavy but it was in the very kind of beginning of where the beach starts so i'm sure it's sunk into the beach yeah it was uh they didn't run your id in the system they ran my fake id in the system and then no i just portrayed myself as the guy in the fake ID. So they let me go. All the friends they got, one of them got a B.U.I.

The girls got, like, drunk in public, and I was just chilling. That's ballsy, bro. Because I think if you get caught with a fake felony, right? Sure, absolutely. Was it your real name on it or a different name? Oh, no, different person. Oh, that's a felony. Yeah, one of my buddies.

Bro, that's ballsy. Yeah, I was smashing. I didn't know what was going on. So what do all your old friends and parents think of what you're doing now? Because it's a totally

different life that you lived in the past. Sure. Well, back in the day I was the bad kid. You know, people don't hang out with Kyle, whatever.

But now that's kind of different. They all want them to learn from Kyle. Wow. Total 180. Yeah, definitely 180. But I guess that's

what happens when you start making money. Yeah. So you would attribute that to getting that first job and seeing your eyes to that world? I literally, I even still, when I go back home to California, because that's where I'm from, and my parents and everybody. So when I go down there, I go to that company because they're still active today, and I bring them the whole company food. I usually tell them, like, I don't know how many times I have told them. I literally, you know, if it wasn't for you guys, I don't know how many times I have told them,

I literally, if it wasn't for you guys, I'd give my success to you guys. Because I was going through such a crazy path that this crazy Amazon game changed my life. Damn, I love that, man. What's next for you? Where can people find you? Anything you want to promote? Yeah, so definitely find me on Instagram.

I've been doing heavy in my coaching. I got people doing six and seven figures monthly in my coaching program. Kyle, K-Y-L-E, period, Kirshner, K-I-R-S-H-N-E-R. And send me a DM. You're not dealing with anybody else on my page but me, so I'll contact you. Love it. Thanks for coming on, Kyle. Of course, man.

Thanks for having me. Thanks for watching, guys, and I'll see you next time.